The Two Types of Divine Names and Their Inability to Define
God.
Gregory follows the reasoning of Basil the Great and
distinguishes two types of Divine names. Some names are negative and attempt to
express the Divinity by indicating that Its properties are the opposite of the
attributes of creation. "The meaning of each of these names indicates only God's
otherness from the things which we understand, but they do not explain His
proper nature." This group includes not only names that are apophatic or
negating but also positive names which indicate absence or oppositeness. Gregory
considers that even the name "the One Who is Good" expresses no more than that
God is not evil and that He is its antithesis. When we call God a "Source" we
indicate that He has no source and is eternal. "These names are a list of the
weak and evil things that God is not." They reflect the progress of the mind as
it purifies itself and becomes increasingly abstract in its ascent to the
ineffable knowledge of God.
Another type of name is derived from the actions and energy of
the Divinity because "He who is invisible by nature becomes visible through His
activity and He can be discerned in the things around Him." These names are also
inadequate to God's being. "He who is above names receives many different names
from us because His grace to us is manifold." These names designate no more than
God's activity "as it relates to us." They also help to reinforce our orthodoxy.
"We express everything we conceive about the Divinity in the form of a name, and
no name has been predicated about God which does not represent a particular
conception. However, actions provide us with no single concept of their author.
"If I want to know something about the mind and you show me a hill of wind-blown
sand or the dust that the wind has stirred up, you have not given me an answer
to my question." All we can know by observing the results of God's activity is
that He is their source.
"The miracles which can be observed in the universe are the
basis for the conceptions of theology according to which the Divinity is named
wise, omnipotent, good, holy, blessed, eternal, the Judge, the Savior, and so
forth." Miracles reveal to creation the glory and greatness of God but not in
its entirety because the Divine energy revealed in them is only partial. "The
miracles which take place in the world do not provide clear evidence as to that
strength which is the source of their energy. I say nothing about the nature
which is the source of this strength. God's works exceed the capabilities of
human perception." The created world is too small to contain God's infinite
Wisdom, Strength, and Glory, or to be a full and true image of the Divinity.
"From the testimony of Scripture," Gregory writes, "we know
that the Divinity is ineffable and cannot be named and we assert that every
name, whether it is known to us by means of some thing proper to our human
nature or through Scripture, is only an interpretation of a conception of the
Divinity." God's names are all the invention of the human mind, which has tried
to express its knowledge of God by describing that which it has intuited or
contemplated. In this respect these names have a certain usefulness. They can be
false idols, however, when the mind exaggerates their limited worth by
considering that they are adequate to God. In dealing with the Eunomians Gregory
writes that their heretical teacher "has blatantly made an idol of his own
opinion." He has deified the meaning of the word 'unoriginate'. In [Eunomius']
consideration it is not a quality which can be relatively ascribed to the
Divinity, but he holds that 'unoriginatedness' itself is God or the
Divinity."
In his polemic against Eunomius Gregory carefully examines the
names of God and shows that not one of them truly or adequately designates His
essence. He points out that Scripture "has not declared the essence of the
Divinity or made it known because it is impossible to comprehend and it cannot
bring any advantage to the curious." The writers of Scripture "did not concern
themselves with giving the Divinity a name because It is superior to all names."
Even the mysterious names of "He Who Is," which is known through revelation, is
not satisfactory. It is exactly this name, which is unqualified and predicates
nothing about its subject, which testifies to the truth that God has no name and
cannot be named. "Some names attempt to express a conception of God's being and
others attempt to express the mode of His being. But until this very day God is
ineffable and has not been explained by what has been said about Him." Gregory
writes in conclusion: "We can know nothing about God except that He is, for this
has been revealed by the words 'I am the One'."
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